Warm Wire

Friday, November 26, 2010

Pee-wee Herman "Let's face it, the world needs more Pee-wee Herman," Judd Apatow recently told Daily Variety, discussing the plan to make a brand new Pee-wee Herman film. And yes, I couldn't agree more. As a child growing up in the '80s and early '90s, Pee-wee (a character Paul Reubens invented in 1982) both amused and amazed me; essentially, Pee-wee is a grown man who never actually grew up. A grown man who still acts and sort of looks like a little boy, but with a unique-to-Pee-wee wacky sense of humor.

I was introduced to Pee-wee through his show, Pee-wee's Playhouse, which ran from 1986-1990, together with the Tim Burton (then relatively unknown) cult-classic Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and also Big Top Pee-wee (which, believe it or not, holds the world record for the longest on-screen kiss!). While Burton's film showed a slightly more troubled and anxious side of Pee-wee, The Playhouse served as his colorful and ageless habitat, a place where Chairy, Konky, Globey, Terry, Floory, Magic Screen and all other characters communed to entertain and enlighten Pee-wee, along with millions of child viewers like myself. And when I tell you I was obsessed, I mean obsessed. My father gave the blue living room chair paper eyes and a mouth to look like Chairy, I owned a replica of the Playhouse with tiny figures, and of course I loved the Pee-wee doll that talked (and now the voice sounds Satanic).

My admiration for Pee-wee didn't simply lie in the fact that a grown man was acting so childish, and thus defying the adult world I was already subconsciously preparing for, but that his TV show didn't try to make kids feel childish. Pee-wee spoke directly to his audience during each show, but since the children watching were basically on his level, Pee-wee seemed like an equal. He tapped into child imaginations; in the Playhouse, everything was alive: animals and objects, flowers and the floor, claymation dinosaurs who live in the wall, and even the food in the fridge! He walked kids through writing letters (with a giant pencil), talking on the telephone (tin cans!), making a healthy breakfast, meeting new people, making heartfelt wishes, learning new words, and wearing a helmet. He was visited by aliens, a cowboy (played by Morhpius!), puppets, "the most beautiful woman in Puppet-land," the King of Cartoons, and many other characters.

Paul Reubens was exceptionally dedicated to his creation, appearing for multiple interviews and awards ceremonies as Pee-wee. And though he hadn't at first intended his character as one for children (when he first performed with The Groundlings), he turned Pee-wee into a proper role model, making his show a morally positive one that cared about issues like racial diversity and compassion. Reubens was also very careful about his influence; even though he was a heavy smoker, he never allowed himself to be photographed with a cigarette, and he also refused to endorse candy bars and other kinds of junk food. Reruns of Playhouse lasted until 1991...until, that is, Reubens' arrest.

We all know the story: he was arrested for "indecent exposure" and his career was, for that moment, through. But there's more to this tale: he was arrested for masturbating in an adult movie theater, where he was watching a porno film, in the dark, alone. My question is: why were the police patrolling an adult movie theater? Was there nothing better for them to do in Sarasota, Florida than catch, or watch, lonely guys touching themselves? In my opinion, Reubens' offense was mild, very mild, especially when compared to the crimes rumored or committed by other celebrities. And obviously the courts didn't even consider it a hefty offense, since all Reubens had to do was pay a $50 fine and perform seventy-five hours of community service.

The major problem here was that he was still a role model for children; except, of course, Reubens was not actually Pee-wee. The public didn't quite see it that way. Reubens had not been in character for a year and a half, so his mugshot was shocking: long-haired, a little bearded, and wearing a tee-shirt, oh no! The public couldn't fathom how this Paul Reubens was the same guy who donned a too-small gray suit, shiny white shoes, little red bowtie, and closely cropped boyish haircut. Many assumed that the arrest caused the cancellation of his TV show, even though the show was already in reruns. CBS did cease airing the show after the incident and Reubens, as well as Pee-wee, kept a low profile for the rest of the '90s.

But in recent years, Reubens has both managed to act in major films and also to dredge Pee-wee from the ashes. As evidenced by his new production, "The Pee-wee Herman Show," running first in Los Angeles and now on Broadway, Pee-wee is still loved and respected. I was fortunate to have gotten to see the Broadway show this month, and I cannot even describe how wonderful it was to witness the love Pee-wee devotees expressed throughout his show. Many wore his signature red bowtie, and some even full Pee-wee regale. The place was jam-packed, sold out, and I even spotted Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green sitting together.

When Reubens parted the big red curtain and walked out onto stage, the theater roared with applause for several uncontrollable minutes. The diverse audience just couldn't clap enough. It may sound strange, but the support and love for Pee-wee brought me to tears! Here was a character who touched so many lives, and now those who religiously watched the show as children could all revisit a collective childhood for a solid ninety minutes.

After the curtain fully parted, the Playhouse, in all of its original glory, came into view. There it was, right in front of me! I was sucked back into the world Reubens so artfully and carefully created, and even the original Jambi, Miss Yvonne, and the mailman appeared through the zig-zaggy red door. Essentially, the show was made for Pee-wee afficianados, though anyone could enjoy it, revealing Pee-wee's aluminum foil ball (it has grown quite large over the past two decades), "la la la la, connect the dots," cartoonish eyes in the dark (from Big Adventure), a Penny cartoon, and the years in which it existed.

A new character, Sergio, decided to properly wire the Playhouse so Pee-wee could go on the internet, but after Pee-wee finally logged onto AOL on his gigantic, out-of-date computer, he became overly obsessed. Soon, he realized that he didn't need to make "new" friends via Chatroom because he already had his loyal ones right beside him (cue the "aw"). While the show relied on childish humor, it was definitely geared to adults, just like The Pee-wee Herman Show that existed prior to his children's show days. He referenced gay marriage, children in the Israeli army, group sex, and of course, masturbation! If the standing ovation Reubens received has proven anything, it's that Pee-wee is far from finished...."I know you are, but what am I?!"

Friday, September 10, 2010

January Schofield and Early Childhood SchizophreniaSchizophrenia is a strange illness. While there are many commonalities among its "sufferers," it's quite the unique-to-the-individual type of condition. And while it seems to be devastating and dangerous for some, for others, it offers creative and artistic insights.

Take Mark Vonnegut, for example (yes, he's Kurt's son). His memoir, The Eden Express, chronicles his descent into madness, and also enlightenment, after taking LSD. When the acid-trip brought on his dormant schizophrenia, he had to be taken off the Canadian island where he and his hippie friends were living and farming, and handed over to a mental institution. After a plethora of medications, Vonnegut learned how to handle his disease organically, changing his diet to alleviate his personal symptoms. Others do not possess the same amount of control.

January Schofield is only eight years old, and far too young to properly devise her own coping mechanisms. But thanks to her parents bringing her on Oprah, Discovery Health, and other programs, she's become a well-known face of childhood mental illness. I'm not particularly interested in the controversy surrounding her father's admittance to hitting her (during one of her violent rages) on his blog, nor am I won over by his plea "to get the general public to reconsider that when they see a child acting up in public, it may be because of a mental illness and that they should not be so judgmental," since I think this is completely self-driven as well as overly idealistic, but I am interested in what goes on in young January's head.

Here is what I do know: Jani (as she's often called) apparently has a genius I.Q, and a generally soft spoken manner. Despite adult-dosages of the most potent anti-psychotic medications available, she continues to battle vivid hallucinations, delusions, and uncontrollable violent rages. She lives with one foot in the "real world" and one foot in her own personal world, called Calalini. As she said to Oprah herself, Calini is "on the border of my world, and your world." This imaginary place is home to mysterious animals and little girls that play with Jani and sometimes tell her to do bad things. Two recurrent creatures are "Four Hundred" the cat and "Wednesday" the rat; last year, Wednesday told Jani to find a place that was fifty feet high and then jump from it. Luckily, Jani didn't listen, but it's possible that one day she may involuntarily kill herself, or badly hurt someone else. At present, her parents maintain two apartments so that she does not injure her little brother. Jani also suffered some oxygen deprivation during or shortly after birth, which killed some brain cells. Doctors think that this exacerbates her psychotic states; however, they do not think this caused her mental illness. Her father attempted to explain Jani's obsession with numbers and animals: "Every schizophrenic has certain hallucinations. My personal theory is that when Jani's illness was becoming acute, she was learning a lot at the time. She was learning about animals and numbers. At 13 months old, she knew her numbers to 20, and she always loved animals. And I think that is the form her hallucinations took."

My own childhood was colored by my vivid and overactive imagination. I'm sure this is the case with most children, and certainly I brought many other people (like my sister, cousins, and friends) into one of many worlds we could create together, but I do think that my ability to simultaneously exist in my head and reality lasted well beyond the age that most kids stop "pretending." I did not experience uncontrollable hallucinations (well, I did have an imaginary friend I don't remember, as do many kids) or violent episodes like Jani, but I did pace back and forth for hours on my lawn or in my basement, talking to myself. My sister makes fun of me to this day for the way I used to do this, oblivious to anyone else watching and wondering who I was talking to.

My inner world fostered a rich connection to myself, and I mourn the loss of the ability to create an all-encompassing inner-reality in which I could exist. At twenty-six, I am far too self-aware, and also too self-conscious, to fully "pretend." However, the ability to make things up, and keep myself entertained when nothing or no one else can/could, simply by way of my thoughts, has evolved into a love of and passion for writing. One day, I hope to make things up for a living.

Curiously enough, another thing that connects me to January is that my name was almost January too, since I was born on January 27th. Eventually, my mom decided that she didn't want anyone calling me "Jan" for short, so that idea was nixed, but I always thought it was a pretty cool name.

Well, we all know that Western medicine loves to put a label on a disease and then determine what the sufferer can or cannot do based on empirical evidence, but schizophrenia falls so outside any circumscribed course of action, rendering the predictable unpredictable and the sufferer largely misunderstood. Doctors also love to over-medicate anyone and everyone, even if that person is only a child.

Daniel Johnston lived in his own world too, and he wrote some gems of heart-wrenching songs, both before and after his own psychotic breakdowns. My hope is that January manages to function within the world that she subconsciously created, or perhaps within a world/realm that does exist somewhere but only she has access to, in addition to the one dictated by society. I guess we shall see.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

German Expressionist films Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and NosferatuThe Expressionist movement began in Europe around 1908: first as a style of painting, and then as a style of theater. It inspired Robert Weine’s famed The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which was released in 1920 and instantly recognized for its stylized mise-en-scène (or everything that appears before the camera) and theatrical choreography. The crux of the German Expressionist movement came two years later, with F.W. Mernau's classic film, Nosferatu.

Expressionist films like Cabinet and Nosferatu are characterized by their painted backdrops, symmetry and patterns, abnormally large proportions, sharp angles, artificial shadows, and slanted walls. These distorted landscapes create the illusion that the viewer is observing a painting set in motion: each shot, taken out of context, might be seen as its own piece of artwork. By expressing extreme psychological states via backdrop and costume, everything that occurs in front of the camera creates a heightened, maddened version of reality. Shadows are also used to create an added element of mystery and fear.

The actors in Expressionist films blend into surrounding scenery through dramatic costumes and makeup that mimic the fabric, lighting, or texture of accompanying sets and objects. The actors’ physical placements may also blend them into the scene, like Cabinet's Cesare the Somnambulist when he is unveiled, rigidly upright in a box, or Nosferatu's Count Orlok hunched in an archway that acts like a coffin. Many of the doors within Orlok's castle are also reminiscent of coffins, reflecting his living-dead state. Human bodies, much like the rooms, landscapes, and objects, are distorted and exaggerated in order to highlight and heighten the characters' emotions and personalities. Faces are also pale, with dark, sunken eyes. The acting itself is exaggerated; embellished facial expressions and body movements represent psychotic states, likewise represented by the bizarre sets. In Cabinet, these feature impossible angles like triangular windows, crooked staircases, oversized doors, inclined walls, and a room with thick lines converging at the center. In Nosferatu, ongoing patterns, like the checkerboard floor, covey a sense of infinite space, unrestricted boundaries, and the illusion of endlessness.

Expressionist films tap into viewers’ imaginations and blatantly disregard all social and scientific norms of the ordinary world, or even of other types of film. There is no firm foundation to ground the characters, no set location or era in time to guide us as viewers, and no denoted reality. All events of the film take place within a mythical world; although resembling our own, the world of the film is a separate entity, surrealistic in its ability to trick the eye and fool the mind.

Dream and reality are also interchangeable and inseparable, especially in Cabinet. We are never sure whether we're watching the internal workings of a (perhaps dreaming) human mind, an artistic representation, or a film that speaks on behalf of the actual conditions of some place we've never been. To take that idea even further, we can also consider the mental state of the actor, Max Schreck, who played the rat-like, long-nailed, vampiric Count Orlok (Mernau did not have permission to use the name Dracula, although Nosferatu is the first filmic version of Dracula). Some have speculated that he thought he was a vampire, although this is mostly a myth. Or is it? In 2000, the movie Shadow of the Vampire was a fictional account of the making of Nosferatu, where Max Schreck was indeed a vampire. I guess we'll never really know.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Tattooist Anil GuptaIt seems like everyone is sporting a tattoo or two nowadays (especially in NYC), but that doesn't mean that everyone has good ones. Most of them fall way below what constitutes as art, let alone quality art, but every now and then a piece of ink really stands out. Anil Gupta's work, for one, reinforces the notion that tattooing is a valid, if not universally accepted, art form, and that tattooists are true visual artists who happen to use skin as their (perhaps more complicated) canvas.

Years ago, along with Lower East Side historian Clayton Patterson, I interviewed "tattoo mechanic" Wes Wood in his Chinatown superstore, Unimax. According to Wood, Anil Gupta learned the art of tattooing from a psychiatrist in his native Bombay, before moving to the states. In New York around 1990, when tattooing was still illegal, he teamed up with Wood, who recalled Gupta's early techniques: "In the beginning, it was like scar city, he wanted to do everything with a single needle. But he got over it, he has an incredible ability to learn and to invent in his own way. He didn’t want to know from anything, he would try this and try that and he was able to do things right away. It didn’t take years of effort, it took months and then he was ready to fly."

Today, Anil is one of the world’s greatest artists for realistic color design, working by appointment only in NYC. After he got into full-fledged color and highly refined detail, he became the first and most eminent tattoo artist of the realistic style, and even does miniature "postage stamps." Wes told me the story of how the two would compete, using rubber grips on pens, to write the entire alphabet in the smallest amount of space. “And he would do it like that,” Wes said, pinching his fingers together, “his eyes could see that. He could look at a needle and tell you if there’s the slightest thing on the edge of the needle that you and I can’t see; we can’t see that, but he can...his eyesight was beyond belief.”

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Sometimes visuals and audio, like a film and a song, come together to create a poignant work of art that changes the meaning of both elements involved. Once interlinked, each serves a completely new purpose. Like when a song accompanies a scene in a film (take, for instance, "Mad World" and "Head Over Heels" in Donnie Darko), or when a music video brings a song to life (quite literally, like "Kiss of Life" by Friendly Fires), or when a song is chosen to stand-in for a lack of dialogue: to act as the voice of an otherwise voiceless visual piece. Such a thing transpired when filmmaker/animator Mark Osborne used New Order's "Elegia" for his short film, More. He created perfect harmony.

As prolific as New Order was, "Elegia" is one of their most profound, and most unusual, songs. Sure, I love "Shellshock," "Age of Consent," "Ceremony," and so many others, but "Elegia" is just...unreal. For one thing, it's 17 and a half minutes long. A shorter, more "radio-friendly" version was released on their album Low-Life, in 1985, but the full version is available on the 2008 Collector's Edition Bonus Disc (there are five albums, with bonus discs, in the series). The band has supposedly stated that "Elegia," an elegy, was written in memory of Ian Curtis. It is an epic, morose tribute that has nothing to do with "Bizarre Love Triangle."

"Elegia" is dramatic and dynamic, long and sweeping, dark and gaping; and while it was oddly placed in a dramatic scene of Pretty In Pink, Mark Osborne knew how to use it best.

Stop-motion and claymation are no easy feats (I should know, I've tried 'em), but Osborne breathes such life, and such misery, into his clay character. Through this "man," we glimpse into the dystopian future, or maybe a symbolic representation of the world in which we already live. We feel for him, and through him, without words.

The short film screened in over 150 film festivals worldwide and was the first IMAX animated film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award, in 1999. But while it is brilliant and evocative in its own right, I do think it draws some of of its power, and emotional edges, from its marriage with "Elegia:" that nearly endless elegy for the tragic loss of a friend. Like I said...perfect. harmony.

Monday, July 26, 2010

The Mending Man, by David M. CollinsThe mark of a good book is that it sticks with you, in your pores or your teeth if you will, long after reading. Even if you've only read it once, or say ten years ago, a book you've fully digested should never completely exit your body, after the two of you have bonded. A meaningful book continues to haunt you, inspire you, flash an image or two at will and force you to make comparisons with other works of art or literature. For me, this is The Mending Man, by David Collins, one of the most unique books I have encountered.

During the summer of 2004, my first summer living in New York City actually, I was interning at an independent publishing company (wait, that sounds familiar). I often read manuscripts proposed by agents and then wrote reader's reports for the editors. Usually, you're encouraged to read the first 50 pages, and then, if you really like the text, 50-some-odd more, but I was so invested in The Mending Man that I took the manuscript home and read the entire thing in one night. Despite the praises I offered in my lengthy report, the company decided not to publish it, or rather, not to republish. The novel had already been published in Canada in the '70s, but it was nowhere to be found in the US and apparently hadn't received much attention. In fact, if you try to find information about this book on the internet, you'll come up pretty empty-handed (try).

I have only read this book one time, but luckily I still have the reader's report I wrote six years ago, and thus the story is still fresh in my mind. Here is the synopsis, based on memory, my earlier writings, and those haunting images that continue to lurk:

This is a novel about hope. The unnamed narrator composes stories about his conflict-ridden life because he has been arrested and sentenced to prison. For a good part of the book, though, we have no idea that he is in prison, and assume he's trapped in some sort of mental hospital. He is writing for 99 days straight, one hour each day, and hence 99 sub-sections appear within 11 chapters. He is fascinated with numbers.

As he recounts his troublesome life, beginning with how he became handicapped (one leg is significantly shorter than the other due to a childhood accident), we learn that he was neglected and mentally abused by his mother as soon as he became “crippled,” picked on and physically abused by boys at school, and ignored during high school, never once going on a romantic date. He had a difficult time holding down a job and always tried to support himself while attempting to strengthen his relationship with his mother, which never quite worked.

At age forty, he attends The Institute to learn about Health. Dr. Bliss, his mentor, has a unique, alternative method for "helping people" with their medical problems (I distinctly remember suction cups as a healing method, and perhaps some strange machine). The narrator studies philosophy, anatomy and science, becomes an apprentice, and eventually sets up his own (not-so-legal) Health Enterprise. Now we learn that he is telling us his life story for a reason. He has something important to share...the truth.He never meant to hurt anyone, only to provide them with Health. He never meant to kill that young girl when her father asked him to give her an abortion. He had no idea what he was doing, not having had proper medical training. We, the readers, must come to our own conclusions about the narrator's decisions and moral standing, not only based upon the stories of his difficult and traumatizing past, but upon how we view these types of situations based on our own, distinct morals.

We then come to a further realization that we have learned from him; he has taught us. No matter how we feel about his decisions, he will somehow remain innocent. Pure. This is a novel about many different things, but I say it is about hope because I believe Collins’ main character. He feels as real as anyone, and he is hoping, throughout his writings, that we understand.

My favorite passage from the book:

“Your lifetime is 70 years – three scores and ten – and that’s not much time. Here I can almost touch both walls with my hands outstretched, and yet as far as space is concerned it’s plenty enough for me. But who can touch his own childhood when he’s a grandfather? In fact, who can touch yesterday or tomorrow? It’s way over there some place, already out of sight or not yet into sight. We need both ends of it, or even a little bit of it, at a time. Only this moment we’re in right now, is all the time we can see.” --Collins

Friday, July 23, 2010

Genie, the Wild ChildI have a personal fascination with feral children. The child I find the most remarkable, and the situation I find most bizarre, is "Genie," the subject of several books and films (such as a documentary by NOVA and a movie called Mockingbird Don't Sing).

While the concept of a feral child usually involves one who has been raised in the wilderness by animals after abandonment early in life, there are many others who become “feral children” after years of intense isolation indoors. Genie (which is a name given to protect her identity) is probably the most famous case. Discovered in California in 1970, she had the appearance of a seven-year-old, weighing just 59 pounds, even though she was thirteen.

During a routine medical exam as a baby, a doctor told the family that Genie seemed “slow” and could possibly have a form of mild retardation. Genie’s mentally unstable father, Clark, decided to “protect” her from the rest of the world by holding her hostage; Genie’s mother, Irene, was partially blind and dependent on her delusional husband. The parents and their older son slept in the living room while Genie was confined to a bare bedroom. She was tied to a potty-chair and made to sleep in a crib enclosed with metal screening, bound in a makeshift straitjacket. Year after year, Genie sat in the chair wearing diapers, with very little mobility. Clark beat her for making noise and would growl and bark like a dog to terrify her into silence.

Finally, Irene left the house with Genie and entered a welfare clinic, where a social worker alerted the police to the child’s condition. Shortly after, Clark killed himself, rather than face prison.

Genie soon became a prized patient for many doctors, psychologists, and linguists, as she bounced from home to home and endured an endless variety of tests, treatments, therapies, and examinations. She had be taught to chew, as well as to divert her anger and emotions outward, instead of violently scratching herself. During frequent temper tantrums, she would bite and kick, and would often urinate or masturbate without discretion. She also had a strange walk, which therapists called the "bunny walk;" she functioned as if blind due to her lengthy sensory deprivation and thus walked with her elbows bent and hands pointed down.Eventually Genie, who gravitated toward shiny, plastic objects, warmed up to acts of affection, made eye contact, smiled, and formed personal bonds. But the biggest challenge was language acquisition, since she was practically nonverbal.

Language is the most important method of human communication and interaction, and it is integral to society and the functionality of its participants. Noam Chomsky wrote of the human brain’s innate language ability and believed that if you placed infants on an island together, they would eventually form their own language despite having never been exposed to one. Another theory suggests that puberty acts as an age limit for acquiring the ability to speak a language, as well as the proper use of grammar. When she was discovered, Genie was dangerously close to that barrier, having surpassed the “critical period” of early childhood when language is typically learned. Though she did begin to speak, as well as to sign, Genie was never able to create syntactically correct sentences and could not hold a conversation or communicate abstract thought.

Genie's fate and situation may be sad, but her case serves to show just how bright the human spirit can shine, against all odds.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Pearl; Harold Budd & Brian EnoSometimes an album hits you, or blankets you, or reaffirms you in a way that's impossible to articulate because words don't do it justice. The feeling has everything to do with your life at the particular moment, or string of moments, where you find yourself listening to said album over and over, especially alone. It's an emotion tied to a place, a person, a calamity, or all of the above that blends seamlessly with one album to create a nonverbal attachment. A sort of musical photograph.

[Not to be confused with "favorite albums" that permeate your existence; what I'm talking about is an album that more-so applies to a certain set of circumstances and that you feel on a deeply emotional, or subconscious level. Mostly of the melancholy variety.]

If you ever attempt to coax others into feeling this specific album the way you do, you'll probably feel exposed, cracked open, splintered; not to mention hurt by their possible critiques ("it's boring" being my least favorite). If they weren't immediately connected to your initial experience, or string of experiences, that embedded the album in some unknown part of you, then it's impossible to pass on the internal significance.

For me, The Pearl is one of several albums that act as emotionally driven, nostalgic forces. Interestingly for me, The Pearl was released in 1984, the year of my birth (along with Treasure by the Cocteau Twins, which is just as, if not more, personally significant), although I didn't hear it until 2006.

Two famous ambient musicians, Harold Budd and Brian Eno, came together to create this album. I love both of them apart (like Budd's The Room and of course Eno's Another Green World), but this collaboration really speaks to me, without the necessity of words. And I deal with words all day long, so when music can line my bones and course my bloodstream without so much as a relatable set of lyrics, it means something.

It simply doesn't work to describe, define, or god forbid analyze the songs using words. I will say this: the piano glides and whispers, the same melodies drifting in out like flickering lights; in one moment, everything is new, and another moment everything familiar. This is, in my opinion, the mark of a perfectly conceived cohesive album, which begs to be listened to from start to finish, and then start to finish once more. The colors and abstract contusion of the cover symbolizes the blending and fading that happens throughout this watercolor-hued record, where the ocean, the sky, and your solitary bed converge at the break of dusk, or dawn, or whenever/wherever you choose to listen.

What makes this album particularly "Surreal" for me is that I used to fall asleep to it night after night, the waves of piano accompanying me. The music blurs the distinction between my self-aware mind and my subconscious; between the waking world where the music exists and breathes, and the sleeping one where it is but an echo, a reflection, an infinite stream of sounds.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

French films Fat Girl and Sex is ComedyThe French certainly have a way with the cinema. From Godard to Tati to Catherine Breillat, they're not afraid to incorporate a sense of humor with sex, and to explore strange, unconventional, non-linear, or slower-paced storylines. As a female director, Breillat is a risk-taker, the most profound risk of which, in my opinion, involve her back to back films Fat Girl and Sex Is Comedy.

In 2001, Fat Girl challenged the notion of female sexuality when an overweight, thirteen-year-old girl becomes obsessed with sex, unlike her slightly older sister who, although much more beautiful, has reservations about sex and considers it dirty. In one poignant, almost unbelievable scene, the older sister, Elena, is in bed with her new boyfriend while "fat girl" Anais is "sleeping." The boy pressures Elena into sex, but she decides that anal sex is the less sinful option, and they engage in this act while Anais is wide awake and listening.

In 2002, Sex Is Comedy was shot in the style of a documentary, and Catherine Breillat played the director. She's directing another film that involves a very intimate bedroom scene between two young lovers who actually hate each other in "real life." Roxane Mesquida, who played Elena, now plays "The Actress." She prepares to shoot the same anal-sex-in-lieu-of-sex-sex scene she did for Fat Girl. Rather meta, isn't it?

Breillat, as a character, needs to coax Mesquida, as a character, into doing the scene (again) and getting it right. Finally, Mesquida gives the role even more emotion, fragility, power, and pain than she could muster one year earlier shooting Fat Girl. The dual scenes are successful on all levels, and Sex Is Comedy offers a unique look into how the first shooting of this scene might have (or might not have) gone. Maybe we're all just characters leaping in and out of roles and realities, trying to give our best, most convincing performance.